My absolute first memory ever has colored my image of Men more than most things I can ever think of. It has a weird dream-like quality because at the tender age of three, I couldn’t have understood what was going on and the meaning behind what I saw only came to me many years later. In this dream-that-isn’t-a-dream (and I can verify it wasn’t a dream, because there is physical evidence), the toddling, three-year-old me (I’m guessing at the age, given the range that people are known to start forming memories and the time at which my parents got divorced) is coming up the stairs in my dad’s house, drawn towards the raised voices of my parents. I came around the corner just following my dad punching a hole in the wall and then stalking off. I couldn’t understand that there was a hole and why my mom was clearly upset. In my experience of my dad since that time, I have only one other time seen him get upset, and the knowledge that there is somewhere in him the person from that time, a person who would get physically destructive if angered, is always in the back of my mind reminding me that even men that I know to be safe could be not-safe underneath.

During or immediately following second grade, I have an experience that I remember, but I don’t remember any details of. My best guess is that this was the summer following second grade since this story involves my mom and I (and I don’t remember if my brother was there?) going to three separate bookstores. It’s one of the ways I connect best with my mom—our shared love of reading. So it would be fairly common to find us at a bookstore. This day, however, we went to our favorite Half Price Books, because that’s what we did for fun. I must have seen more than I remember, but given that I was young and still didn’t comprehend fully what was happening, my mind probably decided it wasn’t important to remember. But, anyway, there was a man there following kids around, dick out. Great, right? Well, we (my mom) told the manager what was going on, but the guy was gone before anything could be done. Creeped out, we went to a different bookstore. Borders this time. He was there as well. Again he left before anything could come of informing the manager. We must have been looking for a specific book, because at this point, I would have refused to go to another bookstore otherwise. But we ended up at the Barnes & Noble next. That goddamn man was there as well, still exposing himself to small children. We told the manager, and this time we were in time to see him driving off. I memorized the license plate number (I’m sure my mom did as well, but I only recall that I did) and we ended up calling the cops. Thankfully the license plate number led to the man’s arrest, but the fact that this had even happened really freaked me out. I remember being terrified of the police officer we had contact with because he was large and imposing like the man had been.

I avoided as many interactions with males as I could from that time until high school. In middle school, I was fairly well-known for hating all guys. But when high school hit, I knew I couldn’t avoid Men altogether for the rest of my life (as much as I would like that). In ninth grade, I had an expansive network of friends, including many boys. One of them was a boy two years older than myself, and who had been through elementary and middle school with my older brother. He seemed nice enough. I would talk to him and text with him. I did that with several guys. Second semester of freshman year, he confessed to liking me. And that’s when things turned to bullshit. For the next two years or so, he would make it a point to regularly ask me out. Several times he tried using the ‘go out with me or I’ll kill myself’ logic. I don’t know how I got out of those, but seriously? Even though I kept telling him I wasn’t interested, he wouldn’t stop asking me out. Even when I got a new phone number and deleted him off of Facebook, he would still try to contact me. And he would give me gifts for no reason. Honestly, when he stayed in contact with people in my grade after he graduated, I wanted so much to tell them to cut off that contact because the indirect contact with me actually frightened me. Just last year, I got a Facebook message out of the blue from him. It terrified me enough that he remembered me that I blocked him immediately. I don’t regret cutting him off.

In senior year of high school, I had gotten through the worst of my hatred of Men (the previous guy excluded). I had several boyfriends in the intervening years. They were high school boyfriends. The longest ‘relationship’ was maybe two months. So when a guy I had known in middle school got in contact with me (he had gone to a different high school because of districting), I accepted the date. Why not. Over the next month, I saw him maybe three times before telling him I didn’t want to see him anymore. Each time I had seen him, I had experienced a growing discomfort. Some part of me was aware that I didn’t feel safe, but it took me a while to listen to it. After I broke up with him, he refused to accept it. I broke up with him in April. He showed up at my family’s apartment numerous times between then and when I left for college in August (also officially moving into my dad’s house at the same time). And the number of times my mom let him in was way too many as well. On June 1st—my birthday and my graduation day—my mom let him come in, even though I asked her not to. He even walked straight into my room with no hesitation, opening the door without even knocking. The fact that he was allowed to enter my safe space when I had made it clear tat he wasn’t welcome freaked me out. I might have yelled at my mom about that. That summer, he kept showing up at the door, banging and banging on it while I cowered wherever I could. He knew our car, so he knew we were home. After our car was totalled, I thought things would be okay because he would think we weren’t home when he came over. No such luck. He found out about the car we bought with the insurance money. While I was completely dreading actually going to college, I was also so terrifically relieved when I finally left and he had no way to contact me. Although that wasn’t exactly true. He apparently knew my tumblr username and many months later, sent me an absurdly long anonymous message through the submissions feature. He also tried to get my friends to guilt me into contacting him. The fact that saying right out “I don’t want to see you” wasn’t enough to mean anything was probably the most terrifying part.

And then there’s the most recent bullshit. Freshman year of college, during orientation week and the first month or so of school, there’s a whole lot of being nice to anybody and everybody to make friends because you don’t really know anybody. And honestly, I shouldn’t have to regret that I was kind to people. But I honestly do. I met this guy, he was roommates with one of the people I made friends with early on and was in a class with me. I figured I should be nice because making enemies so early one was a stupid thing that even I wouldn’t do. It was cool until I realized that he had started to like me. Maybe a month or two into the semester, he ‘asked me out’. It was weirdly ambush-like. He waited until I was walking back to my dorm room alone at night to run up to me and ask me. And then when I said no, he demanded an explanation. I made something up because honestly, I just wan’t interested and he wasn’t going to accept that. When I got a boyfriend the next semester, he got pissed to say the least. What was I supposed to do? Apologize for deciding to have a relationship with someone other than him? Like hell I was doing that. He got better after I broke up with the guy (I guess I should have known that was a bad sign) and even made a gesture of extending an olive branch, asking to be friends. Since I had friends who liked him, I figured I should at least try to play nice. I did my best without actually actively seeking out interactions (he was too eerily similar to the guy from freshman year of high school for my comfort). He even gave me gifts. My friends told me he was safe, so I didn’t care too much although I did keep my eye out because it was feeling a bit like deja vu. And then I came back from a party slightly tipsy one night and he actually asked someone if it would be okay to ‘take advantage’ of me (I’m sure I’ve posted about this on Medium before, so for a more detailed look, check for other posts). I was assured he didn’t mean it, but that had me on high alert. This followed by his ‘April Fools Prank’ (definitely discussed in another post) and then his stalkerish following and staring at a school-sponsored party had me beyond done with him. And then the news this semester that he was removed from school because he had threatened to harm me (and aparently five other girls!) and now the ongoing court process just makes me want to be done with Men forever.